Malcolm Gay encapsulates the St. Louis arts scene

Take Out Featuring roughly 100 eight-by-ten photographic works, Take Out marks the final show for the Ellen Curlee Gallery. Departure is the theme, and the exhibition addresses the idea on several levels. Curlee commissioned the photographs from a wide variety of artists — painters, videographers and, yes, photographers — asking them to draw inspiration from the notion of decampment. Each of the photos is priced to move at a democratic $100, and if you buy one, you take it down from the wall and walk away with it that very day. The show will dissolve as it progresses, until the gallery's patrons have entirely deconstructed it. 1308A Washington Avenue; 314-241-1299 (www.ellencurleegallery.com). Hours: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sat.

Things That Matter: Art by Children with Autism The premise: Artistic creation can help children with autism to better express themselves. The disorder, which affects a person's ability to communicate, often includes intense fascinations with things: stoves, Hello Kitty, dinosaurs. Harnessing this fascination, coordinators Bevin Early and Nancy Pierson asked children to make art about their obsessions. So we have a video of a teenager dancing to Willy Wonka's "The Golden Ticket," a collection of found objects from a boy who collects everything he can and repeated self-portraits of a young boy. Also showing: the work of Don Koster and Jen Maigret, the 2007-'08 Cynthia Weese Teaching Fellows at Wash. U.'s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Through September 6 (Koster and Maigret) and September 13 (Autism) at the Sheldon Art Galleries, 3648 Washington Boulevard; 314-533-9900 or www.sheldonconcerthall.org). Hours: noon-8 p.m. Tue. and Thu., noon-5 p.m. Wed. and Fri., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat.